Download 5. Actions

AIT, Comp. Sci. & Info. Mgmt
AT02.98 Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues in Computing
September Term, 1999
5. Actions
Objectives of these slides:

to describe an ethical theory based on
examining actions themselves
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Overview
1. An Act-Oriented Approach
2. Judging an Action
3. Personal Freedom, Choice and Autonomy
4. Human Behaviour – Other Facits
5. Problems
Comp. Ethics:
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1. An Act-Oriented Approach
 The Universal Declaration also considers the
moral character of an action by examining the
action itself

don’t look at the results/consequences
 Sometimes called the deontological approach

dentos = duty
 We have a duty to respect people’s rights and
needs when carrying out an action.
Comp. Ethics:
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2. Judging an Action
 This approach was developed by Immanuel Kant.
 His initial motivation was that “everything has
either a price or a dignity”

e.g. work skills have a market value, but keeping a
promise cannot be quantified
 The utilitarian aim of quantifying pleasure is
doomed due to the presence of ‘dignities’

Comp. Ethics:
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e.g. how do you value your parents?
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Measuring the Immeasurable
 An act-oriented yardstick measures the humantity
in an act, not the resulting pleasure, pain,
happiness, or unhappiness.
 Doing wrong is seen as violating a fundamental
standard of humanity, people’s universal rights.
Comp. Ethics:
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continued
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 Unfortunately, humanity is hard to define; it is
intangible


it requires intuition, insight, judgement
some skeptics deny its existence
 Response: many things are intangible

e.g. love, trust
but they exist
Comp. Ethics:
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Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)
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3. Personal Freedom, Choice & Autonomy
 Kant’s basic moral law for judging an action is
called the categorical imperative

a command (imperative) that holds with no exceptions or
qualification (categorically)
 Kant has several definitions of it. One of the most
important relates to freedom:

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“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in
your own person or in the person of any other, always at
the same time as an end and never simply as a means.”
continued
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 If I treat someone as a “means”, then I am using
them for my own ends, not theirs.




I don’t care what they want
I see them as an object/tool that I use to get what I want
I impose my choices on them
Their personal freedom, choice and autonomy are
restricted
 Kant’s ethical yardstick measures the humanity of
our acts in terms of the personal freedom, choice
and autonomy of the people affected.
Comp. Ethics:
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4. Human Behaviour – Other Facits
 Many other qualities can be included in the
definition of humanity.
 For example, when we deal with with people, we
should treat them with:


Comp. Ethics:
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equality, dignity, fairness
sympathy, sensitivity
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4.1. The Ability to Think
 The ability to think is an essential component of
humanity.
 Intelligence connects with ethics in two ways.
 1) Intelligence + Choice = Morality

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we are responsible for our actions since we have the
intelligence to choose how to behave.
continued
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 2) Intelligence gives us a means (logical
reasoning) to evaluate the ethics of our actions

e.g. discrimination is logically inconsistent

e.g. lying is inconsistent with the truth of an event
Comp. Ethics:
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4.2. Reason & the Categorical Imperative
 The version of the categorical imperative that
depends most closely on the laws of reason is:


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“Act only according to the maxim whereby you can
at the same time will that it should become a
universal law.”
maxim == policy statement
== principle behind an action
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Examples
 I should not steal a book from the library since
what would happen if everyone stole books?
 I should not make a false promise to someone


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it is self-contradictory (due to reason)
if everyone did the same then the very idea of
“promise” would cease to exist
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5. Problems
 Universality doesn’t allow for exceptional cases

e.g. in a police state it might be morally okay to lie to
the police
 Kant offers no guidance about how to choose
between moral rules

Comp. Ethics:
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e.g. “keep a promise” or “tell the truth”
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Are we Rational?
 Kant argues that our acts should be free from
contradictions and inconsistencies when we
consider their universal application.
 This approach relies on us being able to rationally
judge our actions.
Comp. Ethics:
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